The recent floods have already devastated numerous districts, affecting about two million people in several districts in the north and northeast. There are some disturbing exposures in our print and electronic media showing sufferings of marooned people, displaced families helplessly seeking shelter in the open on a higher road or embankment with whatever they could manage to carry in their person. Pale faces of victims of flood and river erosion speaks of their dire state of helplessness.
There is a serious lack of organized relief work in the flood-affected areas as a whole. The only response we get from the administration once facing the media is that some official will inform you as to how many tons of dry food items have been sent to the affected people and the amount of money they distribute. But the victims hardly receive any substantial help to survive.
We take a lot of satisfaction that ours is a country which has become a role model in disaster management. But once faced with such calamities there is hardly any activity on ground demonstrating our strength in reaching out to people in time. The very mindset of taking adequate preparation in terms of data collection of likely affected areas is totally absent.
To a family desperately trying to save their shelter, their cattle, or a humble storage of paddy, a rescue team in a boat can appear as a godsend. But we hardly see any such thing happening. While the district administration and upazila nirbahi officer (UNO) will declare in front of the media that there is enough relief material available and so many tons are being distributed, the picture is totally different to anyone who meets the victims.
If you happen to meet the officials of the water development board for instance, when an area is being inundated, the answer will be in terms of thousands of sand bags that had been thrown in the water. He may add that a new proposal has already been sent to the higher-ups and if the allotment comes, the work can begin soon and would hopefully finish before the onset of next monsoon.
A government official in his cozy office sitting in his varnished lacquer chair will confidently say that in his area, flood-hit people are being well looked after in terms of shelter, food and health care and there is enough reserve to meet any emergency. Well, it is more than an emergency for the millions of people marooned, who have lost everything and have nowhere to go.
Why can’t we have a number of teams organized at upazila level with boats filled with essentials and go to the people’s doorsteps and help them? One thing is very surprising to the common people: Why don’t we see the military out in relief and rescue operations? Maybe, it is being treated on a scale which doesn’t require a response of that magnitude. Then what is the threshold that would prompt us to launch the military?
The advantages of involving the military are very many. They have trained manpower and resources to carry out relief and rescue operations. They have proved their reliability in carrying out such tasks many times in the past. They can be utilized in pre-flood and post flood situations to take care of the fragile embankments and polders. Once they are on ground, they can help the civil administration in enhancing their ability of prompt response and efficient conduct of relief and rescue operations. Their medical teams also can provide valuable help.
Floods are a common natural calamity happening in Bangladesh. There are opportunities here for government officials to provide service to the people and thereby make them relevant to the taxpayers in the hour of need.
Brig Gen Qazi Abidus Samad, ndc, psc (Retd) is a freelance contributor.
